Thousands of personal details belonging to North Kirklees residents available to buy online

Thousands of records are available to buy.

Published:16:30Friday 17 October 2014

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More than 40,000 people in North Kirklees have had personal details stolen and put up for sale on the ‘dark web’ by criminals.

Due diligence company the C6 Intelligence Group uncovered 40,057 records available, including credit card numbers, bank account numbers and dates of birth, for postcodes across our district.

They decided to release the information after seeing a 5000 per cent increase in the number of compromised identities going up for sale over the past two months.

This is thought to be due to the recent news that Russian gangs hacked more than 1 billion usernames and passwords

Chief executive officer Darren Innes: “Once they have your name, address and DOB they can apply for your birth certificate. Then they can find out your maiden name and then apply for a passport. It is that easy. If they have got your email and password then try all the online retailers and start placing orders.

“It is not a case of if your identification has been stolen it is a matter of when. It is not a case of people panicking but a case of people ensuring they do what they can to make sure their information is protected.”